Louie Anderson, Popular Comic and Actor, Dead at 68
The Hollywood Reporter. He had been receiving treatment for a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.Anderson was known for his stand-up comedy and for acting roles that included his Emmy-winning performance as Christine Baskets, the mother on the FX series Baskets.
She was a “melancholy yet optimistic single mom,” as the Reporter puts it. The comic series ran from 2016 to 2019, and Anderson has said the portrayal was based on his own mother.The comedian said little on the record about his private life.
He married his high school sweetheart in 1985, but the marriage ended after four weeks. He was the subject of gay rumors, but he never said he was gay.In the 1990s, he was blackmailed by a man named Richard Gordon, who said Anderson propositioned him for sex at a Vegas casino in 1993.
Anderson initially paid Gordon $100,000, but Gordon came back with a demand for $250,000 more. Anderson went to the police, who arrested Gordon in 2000 in an undercover sting operation.
